FOREST VALUE DICTIONARY – BY DAVID N. BENGSTON & ZHI XU (FREE)

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Forest Value Dictionary (ZIP file – 4K)

Description

The Forest Value Dictionary is composed of 612 words and phrases. It is a classification system that identifies four broad categories of forest values: economic/utilitarian, life support, aesthetic, and moral/spiritual values. The dictionary can be modified for use with other subjects. In 2017 it was modified for a study on marine issues by Peter J. Jacques and Rafaella Lobo, SOFIA’S choices: Discourses, values, and norms of the World Ocean Regime. It was originally developed and used to empirically analyze the evolution of forest values in the United States from 1982 through 1993 (Bengston & Xu, 1995)

The table below provides for each of the four categories, sample words and phrases and well as the number of entries.

For an excellent presentation on how to build and validate a domain-specific categorization system, we strongly recommend the reading of Bergson & Xu (1995, see below).

For more information

If you need further information on the Forest Value Dictionary, please contact David N. Bengston at or visit his web site.

Technical questions related to the use of the WordStat version should be sent to us at

WordStat Specific Instruction

In order to apply this dictionary, you will need to enable the “Accept Numeric Characters” option since some entries contain numbers (like CO2). The hyphen should also be included in the list of valid characters.

Selected References

Bengston, D, & Xu, Z. (1995). Changing national forest values: A content analysis St. Paul, Minn.: North Central Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Xu, Z. and D. Bengston (1997) Trends in national forest values among forestry professionals, environmentalists, and the news media, 1982-1993. Society and Natural Resources 10: 43-59.